Jewish poverty

There were thousands of articles, hundreds of front pages in the daily and weekly papers in 2012, yet some of the year’s most important stories were barely reported or not reported at all.

1: The Rockets

Drastic cuts to reduce the state's $10 billion budget deficit proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo may cause agencies under the UJA-Federation umbrella to lose as much this year as they have in the past three years combined.

In what the federation calls a "gigantic challenge," agencies providing immigrant services, employment, child care programs will lose about $30 million in revenue and an additional $30 million in foregone funds, such as cost of living increases -- roughly the amount of funding that has been decreased since 2008.

(JTA) -- Severe weather across Europe this week shut down airports and businesses, and made it much more difficult for needy Jews to get the food and financial assistance they require.

The unprecedented snow and low temperatures in places such as the Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania has required the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to work harder than ever to get assistance to its clients in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The framers of an interfaith effort with the grand goal of halving American poverty in the next decade had a small but focused message this week: Keep those school lunches coming.

At a meeting Monday on Capitol Hill at an event attended by congressional staffers, the framers of the effort spoke of a pending vote to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act, the program which brings school breakfasts and lunches to needy children.

The calls come one after another. Eventually, they blur together — the 60-year-old unemployed real estate broker who is behind in his rent; the former headhunter who is struggling to find work; the wife of a recently laid off high-tech professional who can’t pay her family’s utility bills; and the 81-year-old man who needs an affordable place to live because his adult children can no longer subsidize his rent.